Icon's favourite 25 albums of 2008
plus other recommendations and goodies! "It's December. All the major albums have already been released or leaked. It's time to rank everything and shove your opinion down everyone's collective throat. Yay! Lists! So, yeah. 2008 has been pretty good. Not great, but not quite the black hole of goodness that most people make it out to be. On first look there is no major album to catch everyone's attention, either critics or fans. Well, outside of anything Pitchfork gives a 9+ to. Or, uh, whatever those major albums people are buying. In fact, of my top 5 I had only enjoyed a previously released album by one band. The others I had never heard of or though no great things of. This isn't 2007, there aren't infectious albums such as In Rainbows, Random Spirit Lover, or Strawberry Jam. What there is plenty of, however, is consistency. Many of these albums are just that, albums. They are one, or many, thoughts and themes and sounds brought together and are meant to be listened to in entirety. These albums can be enjoyed as much on the first listen as on the 50th. 4 of my top 5 were released in the first half of the year, 3 were released in the first quarter, 1 was leaked in 2007. I've grown to love these albums and there is not much separating anything. #6 is roughly as strong as, say, #21. And as such my rankings will probably change right up to the minute I post. But these 25 albums won't change. Anything else I choose to recognize will be under the heading 'Recommendations,' which I'll post throughout. so let's do this" ::-icon Recommended For Those Who Can't Wait Man Man - Rabbit Habbits http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WJ5I_EP6Iw Man Man are insane live. Watching them is like being at a Tom Waits concert if he joined a crazy burlesque band back in his 20s and was drunk every day -- and lead singer Honus Honus could double for Mr. Waits on record any day. Rabbit Habbits is another good album by Man Man, which seems to be all they are capable of, but it's usually enough. A mix of insane pop songs mixed with long ballads make this album worth a spin or two, and "Poor Jackie" was almost enough to get this album the #25 spot. Recommended For Anyone Who Can Play Guitar James Blackshaw - Litany of Echoes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xE7FC6moUY That's not from his latest, but it's the only thing I could find. Litany of Echoes is a really cool album done mostly on guitar with some piano. If you like drone or ambient this should definitely be something you check out. Recommended For Those Who Like to Listen to an Album Only a Few Times TV on the Radio - Dear Science http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7mMoc-x_v0 It's better than their last, which means it's good. This thing drips of funk. Too bad it gets old pretty quickly! 25 - Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping # "Nonpareil of Favor" – 5:48 # "Wicked Wisdom" – 5:00 # "For Our Elegant Caste" – 2:35 # "Touched Something's Hollow" – 1:26 # "An Eluardian Instance" – 4:35 # "Gallery Piece" – 3:48 # "Women's Studies Victims" – 2:59 # "St. Exquisite's Confessions" – 4:35 # "Triphallus, to Punctuate!" – 3:23 # "And I've Seen a Bloody Shadow" – 2:23 # "Plastis Wafer" – 7:11 # "Death Isn't a Parallel Move" – 3:01 # "Beware Our Nubile Miscreants" – 4:52 # "Mingusings" – 3:01 # "Id Engager" – 3:24 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHFUXH4PP5c Hell has frozen over. In 2007 Of Montreal released Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? and I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. An Of Montreal record. That was good. What? How? They're annoying as all hell, they mash pop sounds with high pitched vocals and strange lyrics in such a way that had never, ever sounded good -- yet on Fauna, they finally clicked. It wasn't so on first, or even second listen, but once "The Past is a Grotesque Animal" hit multiple times I was won over. A strange, disturbing 9 minute song that was the albums focal point, it is the song that made me a fan. . . somewhat. So how to follow up a good album when you're Of Montreal? Another good album, apparently. While a follow-up this sounds nothing similar to Fauna. There are 15 songs that all change genres suddenly, with songs bleeding into songs only to stop abruptly and start a new song once again. They're a collection of 15 songs that inside contain more microsongs which would fit in more with what the Fiery Furnaces release, and it works very well. This album really does everything it can with the pop format, using screeching vocals or guitars, funk, rock, pianos, electronics and anything else you could possibly thing of it is never boring and always has something to look forward to around the corner. Something many of Pitchfork's bands of 08 (Fleet Foxes, Cut Copy, etc) can't boast. 24 - Computer vs. Banjo - Computer vs. Banjo # "Jubilee" - 05:49 # "Guitars Need a Sinner's Touch" - 04:14 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKNc3t2-Mjs # "Give up on Ghosts" - 03:53 # "Outer Space" - 04:14 # "Low" - 03:33 # "San Joaquin" - 05:01 # "Magazine Queen" - 03:41 # "Stone" - 03:55 # "2heavy2hold" - 04:22 # "Concealed" - 03:48 # "Lost" - 03:52 # "Signs of Passing Time" - 3:33 transience recommended, icon approved. This album reminds me of something Firefly would play during the show. It's a soft, lulling spaghetti western album with pop elements that flows really well. There's very little to say except that more people should be listening to this album. Something that went under the radar, definitely. 23 - Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster... and We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed # "Death to Los Campesinos!" - 2:52 # "Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats" - 3:35 # "Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s)" - 3:22 # "Drop it Doe Eyes" - 2:44 # "My Year in Lists" - 1:51 # "Knee Deep at ATP" - 2:49 # "This Is How You Spell. "HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics"" - 4:20 # "We Are All Accelerated Readers" - 2:54 # "You! Me! Dancing!" - 6:48 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj6SO_yKMe8 # "...And We Exhale and Roll Our Eyes in Unison" - 2:50 # "Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks" - 4:31 # "Ways to Make It Through the Wall" – 4:12 # "Miserabilia" – 3:15 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz3L1uDbcjc # "We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed" – 3:54 # "Between an Erupting Earth and an Exploding Sky" – 1:16 # "You'll Need Those Fingers for Crossing" – 5:09 # "It's Never That Easy Though, Is It? (Song for the Other Kurt)" – 2:21 # "The End of the Asterisk" – 1:52 # "Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1" – 4:27 # "Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time" – 2:37 # "All Your Kayfabe Friends" – 3:15 I read a review earlier this year that stated Los Campesinos! are the first band of the Pitchfork generation, meaning that they have grown up reading Pitchfork and have had their influences shaped by it. Which is bull. Los Campesinos! are a fun pop band, something Pitchfork doesn't usually love, who are hyper-literate, which is something Pitchfork loves, and sound like a Canadian band, which is something Pitchfork doesn't usually love. Los Campesinos!'s rapid-fire lyrics, full-band chanting choruses and references from every book you'll read in school or blog you'll read while bumming around in school fit right in with the pop sound Canada has cultivated the last few years, especially in Toronto -- hello Henri Fabergé or many Blocks bands that aren't Final Fantasy. If anything, Los Campesinos! should be hailed as a band from the UK that actually sing with British accents. When was the last time this happened? Blur? They've released two albums this year, which seems a bit much, and when you take into account that they're pretty much the same thing, it doesn't seem necessary. But these guys are young, they make fun pop that you can sing along to, so it doesn't really matter. If I were to choose which of these is superior, it would be We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed. It shows a little amount of growth. 22 - Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane # "Willow Tree" - 3:13 # "Bones of Man" - 2:59 # "Cries of the Dead" - 3:47 # "Inside the Molecules" - 3:45 # "Bare feet on Wet Griptape" - 2:30 # "Phantom Anthills" - 3:00 # "Poisonous Heads" - 3:15 # "TMNT Mask" - 3:29 # "Molten Light" - 2:51http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLw5b70OJH8 # "Old Man + The Sea" - 3:35 # "City of Electric Light" - 2:32 # "Rabid Bits of Time" 3:24 # "Frozen Energon" - 3:40 While Soft Airplane is Chad VanGaalen's third album, it's actually his first. Before this release he had yet to put out an album that wasn't compilations of things he had done before, and this allows him to tone down some of his more eclectic and eccentric pop/folk tastes and create a stunning album which puts his tender voice at the forefront. VanGaalen has always created his albums on lo-fi machinery and synthesizers, and this is no different. These are not simple songs -- they are well crafted, coherent pieces of brilliance. Given more listens this will probably be much higher, but I have just only recently heard this and it is good. Early front-runner for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize. 21 - Portishead - Third # "Silence" – 4:59 # "Hunter" – 3:57 # "Nylon Smile" – 3:16 # "The Rip" – 4:30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPJJSCFdVd0 # "Plastic" – 3:27 # "We Carry On" – 6:27 # "Deep Water" – 1:39 # "Machine Gun" – 4:43 # "Small" – 6:45 # "Magic Doors" – 3:32 # "Threads" – 5:47 It's Portishead, it sounds nothing like past records, this thing is dark, scary, isolated mommy where are you Yeah. Listen to it if you haven't already. 20 - Beach House - Devotion # "Wedding Bell" - 3:55 # "You Came to Me" - 4:05 # "Gila" - 4:46 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnIq0X12i-8 # "Turtle Island" - 4:00 # "Holy Dances" - 4:19 # "All the Years" - 3:36 # "Heart of Chambers" - 4:25 # "Some Things Last a Long Time"- 2:32 # "Astronaut" - 5:05 # "D.A.R.L.I.N.G." - 3:18 # "Home Again" - 4:09 Note: This album contains the best cover of Daniel Johnston's "Some Things Last a Long Time," which is saying something, as nearly every artist who has ever been in a studio has done that song. Kanye did it up with Auto-Tune but cut it at the last second. I almost wish that were true. Beach House confuse me. Most dream-pop does, actually. This doesn't confuse me in such a was as Person Pitch does -- an album I still find equally fascinating and frustrating -- but the confusion is there. The album, much like their last, is sombre and lulling. It draws you in, but is there anything there? Some nice melodies, sure, and some lyrics that are bound to resurface some melancholic memories. And hey, Victoria Legrand has a lovely, lonely voice. But this genre seems all the same, this band seems all the same but oh god once you listen to the album once in entirety you can't stop but succumb to the Beach House. Yeah. 19 - Islaja - Blaze Mountain Recordings # Kammen Kynsi Kieli # Sateen Tullessa # Uni Pollona Olemisesta # Emoa Ikava # Palaa Aurinkoon # Pete P http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBpWiUqwcQY # Silma Amlis # Kristallipallpsilmat This is a strange one. I'm not sure why I like it as much as I do. It may have to do with my shift in tastes in 08, with me moving more into drone and ambient... and this is both. Throw in some experimental Finish folk, add comparisons to Nico and Bjork -- apparently, according to wikipedia -- and you have Islaja. This album is just there, it's like getting lost in a found sounds madhouse. It's organic, it's beautiful, it's sweeping. Islaja has a voice that's more in line with what, say, Beach House would sound like if they were ever more than a good band. One of my most pleasant discoveries this year. 18 - Okkervil River - The Stand-Ins # "Stand Ins, One" - 0:47 # "Lost Coastlines" - 5:31 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKmZRO8XzyY # "Singer Songwriter" - 3:49 # "Starry Stairs" - 4:01 # "Blue Tulip" - 6:18 # "Stand Ins, Two" - 0:31 # "Pop Lie" - 3:12 # "On Tour with Zykos" - 4:54 # "Calling and Not Calling My Ex" - 4:21 # "Stand Ins, Three" - 0:54 # "Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979" - 5:54 Fun Fact: This album charted in Sweden. The Stand-Ins is not so much a follow up on Okkervil River's last album, The Stage Names, as it is the second disc. And it is vastly superior. Stripped down, The Stage Names is a success. The acoustic demo version of that album but Will Sheff's songwriting at the front and for the first time on a non-Black Sheep Boy disc, the stories and characters created felt genuine, seemed like they had a purpose. But with all that, for lack of a better term, noise distorting his vision it fell flat. The Stand-Ins doesn't. It's the rolling, rocking folk album the predecessor wishes it was and it kicks off with an appearance by Jonathan Meiburg, lead of Okkervil River-lite -- er, Shearwater -- on the first song and doesn't stop. Okkervil River didn't top Black Sheep Boy, but they weren't trying. This is a band that has been looking for a sound and they may have finally found it. Category:Lists